


dread glimpses of truth

by yeswayappianway



Category: DC Extended Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Horror, Gen, Implied Clark Kent/Bruce Wayne - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-16
Updated: 2019-05-16
Packaged: 2020-03-06 06:57:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,568
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18845965
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yeswayappianway/pseuds/yeswayappianway
Summary: “No,” Diana admits. “I need to see the Oracle.”She tries not to think about it, the writhing alien mass of the park, the stark planes and impossible angles of the opening under the earth. “Something is breaking free, and it won’t be much longer. I need to know."





	dread glimpses of truth

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Annapods](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Annapods/gifts).
  * Inspired by [[podfic] The Old Ones Are Coming](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14620890) by [Annapods](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Annapods/pseuds/Annapods). 



> Annapods: i hope you enjoy!
> 
> this is based on another work (as linked - original fic that the podfic is based on can be found at [The Old Ones Are Coming](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14573532)) and this probably won't make a whole lot of sense without at least some of the context of that story, but the main thing to know is that this is based in the DCEU movies, and is a Lovecraftian Horror AU.
> 
> thank you so much to the remixapod mods for organizing this awesome challenge!
> 
> title from Lovecraft, of course
> 
> also big thanks to my beta for reassuring me that this was "soft but still creepy" and also being willing to read this without knowing anything about the story it's based on

“Diana!” her mother calls as she lands. It’s warm, maybe a bit surprised. Diana doesn’t visit often.

“Hello, Mother,” she says, wrapping her in a hug. Diana tries to stay away as long as possible, but it doesn’t mean she doesn’t miss it. Something settles into place in her heart as her mother hugs back fiercely.

Stepping away, her mother regards her with a critical eye. “I take it there is business you have here?”

Diana nods, holding out the heavy box. Her mother takes it without a word. They begin to walk away from the shore, into the center of the island. When they reach the top of the stairs, she hands the box off to an Amazon that Diana doesn’t recognize. Diana often feels that Bruce’s overplanning and endlessly redundant security measures are overkill, but in this case, she feels justified in adding a few of her own. None of them want kryptonite to fall into the wrong hands, and the less they know about where it is kept, the better. By keeping it on Themiscyra, they rule out most options of who could have stolen it were it to go missing, at least.

“That wasn’t the only thing that brought you back, was it?” her mother says, no real question in her voice.

“No,” Diana admits, hand unconsciously tightening around the hilt of her sword. “I need to see the Oracle.”

Her mother stops dead in her tracks. “Diana, why—”

“Mother, I know that you are isolated here, and I don’t blame you for keeping things this way, but you have to know what has been going on in man’s world.” Diana tries not to think about it, the writhing alien mass of the park, the stark planes and impossible angles of the opening under the earth, Bruce’s face as he doles out just enough information that they can fight the latest terror he’s detected without truly letting them know what the underlying causes are. She doesn’t begrudge him his secrets, but neither will she let him keep them when she has her own sources of knowledge. “Something is breaking free, and it won’t be much longer. I need to know.”

Diana is used to her mother’s face remaining calm and unmoved, even in the face of defiance or occasionally sheer reckless stupidity from her daughter. It scares her more than she cares to admit to see the open sadness and worry on it now.

“Diana, the Oracle… it isn’t safe.”

Diana nods. “I know. But fighting an enemy unprepared, when I have access to information that could let me plan better, could inform me and let me strategize, is not safe either.” She doesn’t add, _Antiope taught me that_. She doesn’t need to.

Her mother sighs and rubs her eyes with her hands. It reminds Diana strangely of Bruce. She doesn’t know what to make of that. “Alright,” her mother says. “We will go, then.”

\-----

The Oracle dwells in a cave, as it always had. Diana has read many things about the Greeks during her time in man’s world, both story and supposed fact. She’s read the hypotheses that the oracle at Delphi was caused by hallucinatory chemicals wafting up through the vents in the cave. Diana has never been to Delphi. Diana has never seen an Oracle herself.

As they descend the steps into the chill of the cave, Diana grips her lasso tightly, winding one end of it around her own hand. She doesn’t know if it will keep her seeing true, but the act comforts her.

“Understand, Diana, that this is not what you are used to,” her mother says, and despite the warning in her words, Diana smiles faintly. It’s the same tone she’s always used to try and teach Diana, and when she was younger, she’d grown nearly conditioned to hear it and look for ways to run away. Now, she just listens. “It may not give you what information you seek, and if it does, it may not be in a way that you can understand.”

Diana nods. They reach the end of the stairs, and her mother holds up a torch as they walk forward into the chamber. It’s still dark, and somehow the flickering light of the torch seems only to emphasize the darkness of the rest of the room. It’s small, and the main feature is a cluster of three pillars in the middle of the room. They have carvings on them, but Diana can’t focus to read them. At first, she thinks the symbols look familiar, resolving themselves into what seems to be the beginning line to a story she knows well, but then, in front of her eyes, the dancing shadows obscure them and suddenly, she doesn’t even recognize the alphabet.

She’s still staring at the carvings when she feels a warm hand grasp her arm. Diana tears her eyes away, and sees that her mother has set the torch into a fixture near the entrance they came through.

“Ask the Oracle your question, Diana,” she says. “I will be here to pull you back.”

 _Pull me back from what_ , Diana thinks, but she doesn’t ask. She doesn’t want to know who would answer down here. Steeling herself, she thinks of that first monstrosity, the disaster in the park, the first time Kal-El joined them. She hadn’t thought this far ahead, doesn’t know exactly what to ask. All she can do is speak and hope it gives the answers she seeks.

“What are we fighting and how do we stop it?”

She doesn’t remember closing her eyes but suddenly she can’t see. The dark is cold and clammy against her skin, and something moves in it. She still can’t see but somehow, impossibly, she knows that she is looking at something. There are cracks in the world. The sea, the sky, opening into something like that day in the park, something impossible and endless and unsettling at such a base level that she would never know how to describe it other than _wrong_. She feels rather than hears an alien voice, ten voices, a hundred, all clashing horribly against each other but despite the fact that she doesn’t know the words they speak, she knows they’re all saying the same thing. Some sort of ritual, as she sees in the dark more and more of those horrible cracks in the world, and from one of them, an awful temple rises. There’s another voice, behind her, around her, and it sounds—it sounds _familiar_ but she can’t place it—the next crack she sees is in a place she’s been before, but the pressure is building against her skin and behind her eyes and she can’t concentrate—somehow the dark gets darker and the sensations vanish leaving only the pressure and—

Diana stumbles backwards. Her mother releases her vice grip on Diana’s forearm, and she realizes that her mother had pulled her off balance. Diana hears her own breath, ragged and heavy and she drops to her knees, the rough stone of the cavern floor a comfort in how ordinary it is. She realizes her mother is talking, and the buzzing in her ears subsides as she concentrates on the words.

“—please say something, Diana, can you hear me?”

“Yes,” rasps Diana. She gets back to her feet, and holding the lasso in both hands, stares at the space between the pillars. Something coils there, shiny and barely visible. Diana holds it in her gaze for a long moment, and then turns to leave.

They don’t speak as they walk back up the stairs, but when they reach the outside, Diana takes a deep breath of the fresh air and feels another piece of herself click back into place. She realizes with a start that the vision had left one last scrap for her. “Fourteen months,” she says aloud.

Her mother rests her hand on Diana’s shoulder. “That’s all the time you have?”

Diana nods.

“That isn’t much time, especially when your allies are…” her mother trails off. They do not see eye to eye on the effectiveness of the League, but even Diana can admit that this seems beyond them. “You will have much work to do, fighting this threat with the failings of men as your companions.”

Seeing Bruce’s simulations flashing by in her mind, she almost agrees. She hasn’t missed the fact that they all account for the rest of the League besides Bruce, that he always seems to have inside information on what they fight. He thinks he’s kept it from them, but in the light of day and with the light breeze carrying the smell of the sea past her nose, she can think back to the visions she saw from the Oracle and she realizes that the voice she heard was Bruce, twisted and transformed almost beyond recognition, that the place she hadn’t been able to recognize was in Gotham. It’s not a far leap to realize that somehow, this threat will center on Bruce, might even come from him.

But—she thinks of Bruce, of Clark, of the way they orbit each other, the soft way they look at each other when the other isn’t looking, and she remembers something she said a lifetime ago. _Only love can truly save the world_. Diana smiles, and says, “I think, this time, they might be up to the challenge.”

**Author's Note:**

> if you enjoyed this, please go check out Annapod's podfic, and also susiecarter's fic!


End file.
